Stritar's chronolog

Force touch is the new multi-touch

Mon, 14 Sep 2015 22:12:37 GMT

When I first saw the video demonstrating Force Touch on one of Huawei’s new phones a few weeks ago, I found the feature pretty much useless. You have this amazing new sensor, and a scale application is the best you can do with it? Supposedly, the Chinese manufacturer has beaten Apple at introducing this new feature, but the fact is, Apple has done something completely different. The ~~Force Touch~~ 3D Touch - iOS integration has the potential to change the way we interact with our phones, in a similar way than multi-touch gestures did years ago.

Surely, there will be subtle modifications in next iterations, but the concept is there and it seems to work. And the results look like a crazy hybrid between a right click, the Spacebar Quick Look preview in Mac OS (which is one operating system's best features in general) and multi-touch gestures on steroids.

Demonstration of the 3D Touch technology with iPhone 6S and iOS 9.

Multi-touch revolutionised user interaction when the iPhone was introduced, but it hasn’t changed much in the past 8 years, even though newer and better gestures have been introduced. But now, a new layer has been added to the equation, and it seems that the flat, layered concept of the new iOS finally received its cherry. App developers, are you ready to play?

Apple's position of controlling both hardware and software has yet again proven itself solid, and Google will surely have quite a hard job to push this component across its platform to such extent.

Cool Slovenian brands, part 3: The rise of the Slovenian hardware startup

Tue, 07 Oct 2014 08:55:53 GMT

I've been writing about Slovenian startups for years now. In a post I published in the beginning of 2012, I've highlighted a few Slovenian companies there were able to gain global traction, and as you can see, all of them are focused on software. About a year later, I wrote on the topic again, and this time, the spotlight was on a new generation of companies, which were fueled by Kickstarter and the crowdfunding movement. These businesses were able to find their market with niche products that were interesting to the public mostly because of their innovative design. This year, I'll focus on the third generation of Slovenian technology startups, represented by companies that were able establish something that actually seems so logical today: the rise of the Slovenian hardware startup.

This is basic evolution. Slovenians know how to make great software. We were always known to have had exceptional designers. Besides, there are plenty of outstanding engineers from previous and current generations that were able to produce global success stories with high-tech products such as exhaust systems, ultra-light planes, solar panels and even sailing yachts. Put the three together, and what you get, is a modern hardware startup. Because most hardware startups that want to compete globally, require these three components:

awesome software (1st generation)
awesome design (2nd generation)
awesome hardware (3rd generation)

Currently, there are at least 16 hot Slovenian hardware startups, who managed to reach global audience, receive funding via Kickstarter or investors, or have great potential to disrupt specific industries. Most are focused on uprising technologies, such as the Internet of Things and Quantified Self. Others are simple gadgets that help fuel the mobile revolution. All of them are focused on niche markets that did not exist five years ago.

I'm really glad Slovenian entrepreneurs were able to focus on these new fields, because the modern hardware market is not something anyone can compete in. You need specific skills from many fields, especially software, design and engineering. And Slovenians are exceptional in all of them. This is why this third generation of Slovenian startups perhaps has the biggest potential of them all. The community is strong as ever, heck, some are already joining forces in making cool mashups. And they need your help as well: know them, like them, support them, buy them!

Here they are, the hottest Slovenian hardware startups, together with a few highligths of their stories so far:

Beezinga

Beezinga is an early warning analytical system about events in remote apiaries. Beezinga - Google analytics for beekeepers.
Highlights: Wins ImagineCup 2013 (Apr '13), gets covered by TechCrunch (Jul '13) and others (Jul '13).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~500
Links: beezinga.com, @beezingahive, FB: BeezingaHive

Bellabeat

Hear, visualize and share your unborn baby's heartbeat with our pocket size heart rate monitor and a mobile app.
Highlights: Joins Y Combinator (Feb '14), gets covered by ABC News (Mar '14), raises additional $4.5M (May '14), introduces 3 new products (Sep '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~9.700
Links: bellabeat.com, @GetBellaBeat, FB: bellabeat

CarLock

CarLock is an affordable and easy to use solution for monitoring your car's location.
Highlights: Joins StartLabs (Jan '14), gets featured in Auto Express Magazine (Apr '14) and Top Gear Magazine (Jun '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~6.150
Links: carlock.co, @Carlock6, FB: carlock

Chipolo

Chipolo™ is a Bluetooth item finder for iPhone & Android. And it comes in 9 gorgeous colors.
Highlights: Raises almost $300k on Kickstarter (Nov '13), appears on TechCrunch (Nov '13) and TheNextWeb (Dec '13), is available on Amazon UK (Jun '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~4.300
Links: chipolo.net, @Chipolo, FB: ChipoloTM

CubeSensors

CubeSensors are small, cordless and connected devices that help you maintain a healthy and productive indoor environment.
Highlights: Wins TechCrunch hardware battlefield (Jan '14), raises $700k (Jun '14), appears on HardWired (Jul '14), is shipping from stock (Sep '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~2.000
Links: cubesensors.com, @CubeSensors, FB: cubesensors

Daisy.si

Daisy.si is an amazing new independent portable all-in-one design smart plant watering device.
Highlights: Raises $26k on Indiegogo (Jun '14), gets covered by multiple sources (Apr '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): N/A
Links: daisy.si

enolyse

Platform for family winemakers to improve fermentation and save time.
Highlights: Wins start:Cloud 2013 (Oct '13), becomes Slovenian start-up 2014 finalist (May '14), Joins LAUNCHhub (May '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~650
Links: enolyse.com, @enolyse, FB: enolyse

FlyKly

FlyKly Street Smart. Smart tools for smarter urban transportation.
Highlights: Gets covered by Engadget (Oct '13), CNET (Oct '13) and others, Raises $700k on Kickstarter (Oct '13), appears on PopSci (Feb '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~23.500
Links: flykly.com, @flykly, FB: flyklybike

H2O-Pal

The Hydration Tracker That Works Perfectly With Your Smartphone.
Highlights: Gets covered by TechCrunch (Oct '13), appears on CES (Jan '14), becomes Slovenian start-up of 2014 (May '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~5.300
Links: h2opal.com, @H2OPal, FB: h2opal

Lumu

Lumu is a light meter for your smartphone. It helps you create powerful memories anytime, anywhere.
Highlights: Gets covered by The Verge (May '13) and TheNextWeb (Jun '14), Raises $244k on Kickstarter (Jul '13).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~6.250
Links: lu.mu, @Lumu, FB: lumu.meter

MESI (Qualcomm Tricoder XPRIZE)

Our solution is to bring the doctor into your home. It consists of a wristband, wearable shield, mobile app and 4 modules.
Highlights: Becomes finalist of XPRIZE (Aug '14), appears on TheNextWeb (Aug '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~800
Homepage: mesimedical.com, @MESImedical, FB: MESIdoo

Monolyth

Monolyth is internet connected device for your AC unit, optimizing air temperature & quality for your comfort and energy savings.
Highlights: Gets covered by Digital trends (Jul '14) and others (Jul '14), tries with Indiegogo (Aug '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~650
Homepage: monolyth.co, @MonolythCo, FB: monolyth.co

OIVO

Oivo is the smallest charger on the go for iPhone. No cables, no AC power, no fuss. Just add AA batteries.
Highlights: Gets covered by TheNextWeb (Sep '14), starts great on Kickstarter (Sep '14) but cancels campaign to reiterate (Sep '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~1.300
Links: oivo.pw, @OivoPW, FB: oivo.pw

Red Pitaya

Red Pitaya turns your smartphone, tablet or PC into many amazing instruments.
Highlights: Gets covered by TechCrunch (Jul '14), raises $256k on Kickstarter (Sep '13), appears elsewhere (Dec '13).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~1.900
Links: redpitaya.com, @red_pitaya_, FB: redpitayaspark

Swich

A unique Smartphone Wireless Charger. Sophisticated energy transmission and elegant design in sustainable materials.
Highlights: Raises $45k on Kickstarter (Jul '14), appears on GigaOm (Jul '14), FastCo (Jul '14) and ZDNet (Jul '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~1.600
Links: swichwicharger.com, @swichwicharger, FB: Swich.wireless

Visionect

We're deploying the next generation of digital signage by applying electronic paper where glaring, energy consuming and heavily wired LCDs can't do the job.
Highlights: Raises $1,5m (Sep '12), gets covered by TechCrunch (Feb '14), launches development kit (Feb '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~2.000
Links: visionect.com, @visionect, FB: visionect

Interested in more stories about Slovenian startups? Check out this magazine.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

Check out the complete Cool Slovenian brands series.

The end of recession or the coolest Slovenian billboard of 2014?

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 07:41:51 GMT

A few days ago, a billboard captured my attention. Actually, we're talking about many billboards, since this metallurgy company called Bučar put them all over Ljubljana. The weird thing is, they are using them to recruit new employees. Wait a minute, there's something wrong with this picture! While everybody is aggressively trying to sell us stuff we don't really need, these guys are actually looking for new workers with billboards? In a country with an unemployment rate of 13%? Is this thing for real?

Let's try to understand what just happened here... The company itself seems to be the development of a capable entrepreneur Drago Bučar, whose business is growing like mad. Judging the billboard's design, I would guess the campaign is not a professional act, but rather something done internally, without much involvement from a marketing agency. But that doesn't change the fact the effect of the billboard is brilliant. While trying to find 10 new workers (as posted on their website), I believe Bučar actually managed to produce one of the most effective branding campaigns of this year in Slovenia, which already granted them an apperance on the national radio. Everybody wants to know who these guys are, and they were targeting somebody completely different. Can you believe the irony?

Of course, there is always the possibility that this billboard is a work of a mastermind genius, whose plan was to capture attention with false pretense, but I don't think so. This thing looks legit, and it's always nice to hear about prosperous companies from Slovenia. Good luck, kick ass!

Tablets were invented for recycling old PC games

Tue, 01 Apr 2014 21:15:33 GMT

Remember when we were playing really great games on our first home computers in the 80s and 90s? Good times. My gaming journey started with the Spectrum 48K (snowman FTW!), and slowly progressed to where we are now. Today's games truly are a piece of art, I have to give full credit to ventures such as Angry Birds and GTAs, but back then, everything was so much simpler, as if different rules applied. Games were there purely for the gameplay, and were awesome even if they came in 4-bit colors.

Luckily, these classic MS-DOS games received the opportunity to be revived. A few months ago, I played The Secret of Monkey Island on the iPad and it was fucking brilliant. Such a perfectly integrated experience, as if the game was originally designed for the tablet. Loved the humor, loved the clever tricks, loved the simplicity. It brought back so many memories... I want to play more games like that! More Lucas Arts and Sierra titles! Street Rod and Duke Nukem 2D! Dune, Syndicate and UFO! Railroad Tycoon!! Starcraft!!!

(Besides The Secret of Monkey Island, I noticed Civilization. Simcity and Prince of Persia are also available in the App Store, while The Incredible Machine seems to have been removed. Don't like the generic modern graphics though.)

These old games were great because they offered so little, but due to today's information pollution, insufficiency is bliss. Imagine a game where you don't need to be impressed with its amazing graphics or clever physics. Yes, we used to enjoy things like that, things that were pure and simple. Things like The Monkey Island, which managed to make me calm and relaxed with its plain ingenuity, besides reminding me of my childhood.

I'm not sure about the legal issues that come with it, but I am certain there's a huge opportunity in republishing classic games and abandonware on tablets and smartphones. The concepts and scenarios are there, they just need to be modified and rewritten for another device. So, if you have the opportunity to do so, please recycle one of those old PC titles, I would love to enjoy every bit of its vintageness on my mobile device before I go to bed. Because people are sentimental, and old times will always mean good times. And there are many of us who are prepared to pay money for that.

Apple is just messing with our minds

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 06:50:08 GMT

iOS 7 is all over the place. Some love the new look, others think it's childish and confusing. Some even say the flat look symbolizes Apple's capitulation, since they're abandoning the skeuomorphic paradigm they have been using for ages. The new icons are obviously the most controversial part of the released software, and they seem - yes - wrong and unfinished. But what if the unpolished icons are just a marketing trick, a temporary solution presented on purpose to annoy people, especially the designer community? Rumors have it, they were designed by their marketing team anyways.

The inconsistencies of the new icons. Categorized by GreenGelatin on reddit.

Personally, I like the new operating system. I think the whole 3D concept is great, a good reason why icons and other elements needed to go flat. I like the typical screens and forms, even if they resemble Windows. I didn't have the chance to try it out, but I believe the authors who did and claim it is a huge step forward.

Apple has sold iOS 7 to me, probably also because I can easily ignore the various types of icons, and the different directions of gradients. I admit they could be better, but I can imagine designers hating it. Which means that all that Apple needs to do, is to introduce a new set of icons before the launch, something super coherent and amazing, and it will blow everyone's mind. Bam!, and all the heretics run back to the mothership. If the final icons would manage to exceed expectations as some other things seen in iOS 7 did so far, Apple wouldn't have to worry about their mobile program for years to come.

One of the icon redesigns, published by agent00420 on reddit. If a single person can do this in one day, imagine what Apple can do.

Think about it. Would a company which has been associated with great design for decades present something so weak unintentionally?

It's funny how such a controversy, a potential game changer and perhaps another great manipulation, something that has the power to change one strong emotion into another, is encapsulated in the form of 20 small pictures. It seems Apple has done it again.

(Cover image via @likeluis)

Cool Slovenian brands, part 2: The stars of Kickstarter

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 22:25:28 GMT

Kickstarter got my attention back in 2010, when Diaspora successfully raised $50k. This is the amount they required to develop an open source alternative to Facebook, where people would have full control over their posts and multimedia. It was a good idea, but too complex to easily implement, and the guys never managed to make it fully work. But there are other projects who did manage go big, making Kickstarter and crowd-founding an everyday thing. Today, numerous ideas, products, and even movies are financed this way, while statistics tell an amazing story: in 2012, Kickstarter pledges topped $300 million.

Besides getting financial resources which help people to build their products, crowd-funding has many other interesting benefits. For young entrepreneurs, this platform provides an option to validate their ideas which can help them reach product / market fit. They can start selling their prototype or MVP before they have a fully developed product. The (viral) marketing component is important as well, great Kickstarter projects spread around the (social) Web in minutes. People who get involved in something, have a strong tendency to become advocates and share information about it. These are just a few reasons why there are so many individuals and startups who are choosing such approaches to enter new markets.

I'm very glad to see crowd-funding being used in Slovenia as well. Since 2012, when LLSTOL managed to raise $18k+ on Kickstarter, other projects used the same strategy. In the last month alone, we've seen two new superstars emerge, bringing the total number of successfully funded Slovenian Kickstarter projects to 4 (two of those are still ongoing, the third hasn't reached the goal yet). We must mention two other projects (My name is Janez Janša and Namazi na mizo) which managed to find funding elsewhere.

LLSTOL

Time: Aug-Sep 2012
Received: $21,956 ($18,000 goal)
The LLSTOL (LL Chair) is a modular piece of furniture you can use in many ways; as a chair, a table, shelving or a drawing board. These multi-functional properties make it a very interesting product, which enabled LLSTOL to get featured in many local and international blogs. Thumbs up for paving the way for other Slovenian projects on Kickstarter!

XVIDA Boomerang

Time: Nov-Dec 2012
Received: $50,667 ($40,000 goal)
The all-in-one iPad stand went a step further, with a funding goal of $40k. Again, we are seeing a product with a modular structure, with a variety of beautifully designed holders for different occasions. Boomerang managed to turn quite a few heads, and is already shipping.

ONDU

Time: May-Jun 12th 2013 - STILL ACTIVE
Received: $92,876 ($10,000 goal)
Currently the most successful Slovenian Kickstarter project, ONDU pinhole cameras already raised more than $90k, out of $10k required. I like this project a lot as well, since it offers a beautiful, simple and unique product, made from local materials, by an enthusiast who likes to work with wood.

Marko B.'s story

Time: May-Jun 20th 2013 - STILL ACTIVE
Received: $1,843 ($20,000 goal)
Marko Baloh is an ultra-marathon cyclist, who he has written an autobiography about training for one of the hardest races ever, RAAM. With the help of Kickstarter, he will try to translate and publish that book in English as well. Hopefully, he can get a bit more exposure that will help him reach that goal.

Musguard

Time: May-Jun 22th 2013 - STILL ACTIVE
Received: $25,323 ($10,000 goal)
The foldable rear bycicle fender is simply awesome, and it weighs only 35 grams. The hipsters will probably take this product for their own, and thanks to Kickstarter, we will be seeing it in many colors. Musguard is one of the few projects who made it to Gizmodo.

Other projects

There are other Slovenian projects who were financed or marketed with the help of crowd-funding as well:

My name is Janez Janša: A documentary movie about three artists who changed their names to Janez Janša managed to raise more than €7k on Verkami back in April 2012, which makes this film the first successfully crowd-founded project in Slovenia!
Pelicon Beer: While Pelicon beer didn't manage to raise $100,000 to expand their production line, their Kickstarter campaign was successful anyways; they gained so much exposure, they will be opening the brewery on their own anyways.
Namazi na mizo: The cook book about different spreads managed to raise enough money to be actually published in real life. This was achieved locally, by accepting donations.

Your turn

I admit I gave the projects that used Kickstarter a bit more weight than others. I strongly feel that such cool ideas should try to aim for global markets, and Kickstarter is the platform that can help them achieve just that. Besides, there are three Slovenian projects who are still active on Kickstarter at the time of writing, and I think they need any help they can get.

It's fascinating that pretty much all internationally successful Slovenian crowd-founded campaigns are about real-life products with unique and creative designs. Slovenia definitely has to start actively developing this industry, I know so many talented designers around here, and there is a lot of legacy from the previous ages. These projects deserve to join other Slovenian success stories, don't you agree? What are you waiting for, become a part of the story, apply with your project or back someone up!

(Special thanks to alivea for compiling the list which helped me write this.)

UPDATE (23.6.2013): In the mean time, Lumu Light Meter managed to set a new standard, reaching its $20k goal in hours, and is already at $140k+ after six days. This is already the fourth Kickstarter project in cooperation with Niko Klanšek (after LLSTOL, Ondu and Musguard), and Lumu is so cool it got TechCrunched!

Check out the complete Cool Slovenian brands series.

Reinventing the blog, part 3: WTF did Pitchfork just do?

Thu, 30 May 2013 20:24:21 GMT

You know that feeling when you do a lot of research, and after you publish your results, you notice something else that should be included as well? Happens to me all the time. Immediately after creating the list of the most outstanding blogs, I noticed a few others that should be added to the directory. Shit happens. I also tried to identify the funky new UI elements these blogs use, which would help me understand the user experience requirements driving modern publishing trends. Felt pretty good about the conclusions, but only to find myself out of luck again. Turns out I missed something very important, something I noticed when I saw what Pitchfork does with their cover articles.

When I was doing some research on Daft Punk, I read an article on Pitchfork, and their use of parallax scrolling almost brought tears to my eyes. Not that parallax scrolling is anything new - there are many outstanding cases of using this technique in web design. But usually, this means the whole website is a single-page showcase that is using multiple layers that scroll with different velocity and in different directions to display information in an interesting way. One page.

Not on Pitchfork. They're using advanced layouts and super-fancy parallax scrolling on all of their cover articles. Custom fucking everything. Contrary to some other magazines, who are also using generic parallax scrolling in their feature articles (respect!), and some other blogs using custom layouts for cover stories (respect!), this is simply over the top. Check it out for yourself. I can't imagine how much time is put into a post like this, making it looks as good as it does.

One of the crazy transitions and animations inside the story.

But what does this mean? Simple. Do you remember The Daily, an iPad-only magazine that was already discontinued? Supposedly it offered revolutionary ways of consuming content. I didn't get the chance to try it out, but I did saw a few issues of Wired on the iPad, and I have to admit, it did feel like being in the future.

These paradigms are slowly being adopted on the Web as well, and some magazines and blogs are already polishing their most important content to impressive levels, combining in-depth stories and custom development into digital masterpieces. Like Pitchfork's cover story, or even a feature on Newsweek or a review on The Verge. This goes beyond putting some text into a WYSIWYG editor and uploading a few photos. Modern (digital) publishing is obviously pointing towards a collaborative effort of a broad team of journalists, designers and web developers, which will be the only way to deliver content that will retain audience. So much for a plain and simple blog redesign.

Check out the complete Reinventing the blog series.

Reinventing the blog, part 2: The challenges, the opportunies

Thu, 09 May 2013 12:42:06 GMT

After the initial dissection of the most innovative and well designed blogs, it's time to go behind the scenes. We've seen how some of these blogs look like, but there's even more value in understanding why they look like they do. Every good user experience analysis needs to have a clear overview of the goals and good insight into the problems of the situation, and I will try to outline these by using my blog as an example. A lot can be deducted by monitoring the basic Google Analytics reports.

Even though generic blog challenges and opportunities may not exist, I think that most blogs probably share around 80% of these goals. And just to be clear, by blogs I don't mean corporate blogs with their specific requirements (sales, leads, conversions), but modern online magazines, originally (and still) called blogs, even though they are actually becoming mainstream media. Therefore, this analysis can work for most online publishers, but I'm doing it mostly to help me understand what I need to do to reinvent my blog again. It's pretty simple: getting and retaining traffic. All other requirement are derived from these two.

Main goal: getting traffic, increasing engagement

The main goal of every website is to get traffic. For traffic, you need great (or at least good) content, something with added value for the users. What you do with that traffic, is another story. Sell things, sell ads, sell yourself.

There are primarily three different sources of traffic you can receive: direct, referral and search. You want all of them, and each component is a result of different activities. Getting direct traffic means you have a strong brand. Getting referral traffic means you have great writers / influencers which help you get backlinks to your blog. Getting search traffic means you have a great technical team and SEO (CMO and SMO) optimized site.

You want a well-balanced stream of traffic to your blog.

The other important goal that websites have is keeping the traffic on the site, which can be done by stimulating user engagement. Helping things happen after you get people to your blog. You want users to spend as much time as possible with you, navigate through many pages, and hopefully give you some feedback - leaving comments and sharing your posts on social media. Some blogs want other actions as well, but these are probably the most obvious ones.

Increasing social media activity

Social media is emerging as one of the most important referral sources. But lately, it's becoming a noteworthy factor for search engine rankings as well. That's why blogs are trying hard to integrate social media widgets into their content, some even go beyond the standard tweet / like / + 1 buttons. Help people share, there are many benefits from it, both direct and indirect.

The social activity on my most visited post. These figures translate into more than 10k unique users.

Lowering bounce rates, increasing time on site

Most blogs have very high bounce rates - people tend to read a single post and leave the site. That is why designers and information architects are trying to do everything to keep readers on their site, hoping to persuade them to read another article. Some are trying too hard by adding too many related posts, others are playing with many interesting ways of driving readers to the next page.

My current bounce rate is more than 80%, with average visit duration just above 2 minutes. Something that needs to be improved urgently. I am sure this will be one of the most significant challenges I will face when developing the next generation of my blog.

Improving these bounce rates and time on site is one of my highest priorities.

Treating every page as a landing page

The time when people visited the homepage and navigated further from there are over. Today, specially because of social media, every page is a landing page and needs to be treated as such. We are consuming content in a different way, we don't browse for content anymore, the content finds us. That is why we need to design every single page as the starting point for our visitors.

At this point, less than 10% of traffic to my blog comes through the homepage. Which means designing great post pages is becoming more important than designing the homepage, since every page needs to become a hub for further navigation.

Building loyalty and credibility (branding)

Besides keeping users on site, it's also important you get users back to the site. As your brand and reputation evolve, it gets easier with all of the traffic components, but you can achieve that with only one thing - great content. Of course, nice design and user experience help, but you can't bypass this simple fact: you need something with added value to the readers. Only then you will get loyal users and only then your blog will thrive.

Even though most focus is done on gaining new readers, you mustn't forget about returning ones.

Allowing a mobile-friendly experience

We are living in a mobile world and more and more traffic is made by mobile devices. This number is closing in on 20% on my blog, which means optimization for mobile visitors is becoming something that you can't ignore.

Mobile operating systems are on the rise.

Combining it with the funky new UI elements

In my previous post, I outlined the interesting new user interface elements my favourite blogs use. Now we can map these elements with the above mentioned five challenges and opportunities, which will help us understand the requirements behind the innovations.

	Social media	Bounce / time	Landing pages	Branding	Mobile
Unconventional navigation		1	1	1
Fixed (floating) menu		1	1
Responsive design		1		1	1
Big key visual before text	1	1
Advanced key visual (gallery, video)	1	1		1
Abstract, teaser, subheading	1				1
Suggested content within limits		1	1		1
Custom social media integration	1			1
Polished content (wrapping, quotes)	1	1		1
Custom typography				1
Infinite scroll		1			1
Pinterest-style homepage		1		1
Integrated content and navigation		1	1	1
Total	5	10	4	8	4

It's pretty clear each of the elements has at least one specific goal that it's trying to solve. Some of them will surely become a standard in the future.

Conclusion

What a modern blog is trying to achieve in 2013 is pretty clear. Get more traffic, make users spend more time on the site. This hasn't changed in decades, but the behaviour of the users has. Only those that will be able to adapt to the newly-formed situation will survive.

The most important paradigms that have shaped the past years are the social and mobile era, which have revolutionized the ways we consume content. We are online all the time, with many devices, and there is so much content everywhere, it's overwhelming. Our attention span is becoming very limited, and all of above mentioned challenges are focused in trying to capture it.

I decided it's time to redesing my blog again, and by understanding what (and why) the market leaders do, my task will surely be easier. I hope you find my analysis useful, but please feel free to add anything I may have forgotten in the comments.

Check out the complete Reinventing the blog series.

iPhone 5 is Kubrick's monolith!

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:24:58 GMT

I've been using the iPhone 5 for the past few days. Yeah, so last year, but I would've stayed with my 3GS even longer if it wouldn't die on me. Needless to say I love the new one. It's a great piece of machinery that's done just right. The right size, the right weight, the right material, the right precise manufacturing. But it also has something else that makes it look and feel great, even though it took me a few days to fully understand what it is. Something that makes it more than a phone, something that makes it a fetish.

The iPhone is black. Black aluminum black, no compromises. Nothing special with that, if it wouldn't resemble something that's been embedded in my brain for years. I couldn't really put my finger on it, until I saw it in on a white background. Then it finally hit me - the iPhone mimics Stanley Kubrick's monolith from the Space Odyssey! The ultimate object, the catalyst for the dawning of mankind! And it seems I'm not the only one who noticed it.

iPhone as the monolith. You can compare it to the original.

Even though Apple may not be what it used to be, and Android phones are taking over the world, Apple still has a few tricks up its sleeve. There are things Samsung and other Androids still aren't fully able to replicate. Most users don't care about the specifications, they care about the experience, and those phones simply can't match it. The iPhone delivers a complete package that is able to influence emotions. It's not a generic phone, it's more than that. This brilliant manipulation in a form of a gadget is seducing me, and that's what I want from my phone, and I don't care how it's done. Design is all about shaping someone's perception. Galaxies are boring.

Reinventing the blog, part 1: Dissecting the most innovative and best-designed blogs

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:23:46 GMT

The blog is getting mature. Ever since Gawker did its eccentric redesign a few years ago, we've seen a lot of other blog (networks) doing similar things, trying to reinvent how the blog should look like in 2013. After the initial hiccup, Gawker managed to fortify its position and attract new users, showing others that people do like to see different things, things that are imitating the experience of reading electronic magazines on mobile devices. Today, there are many great cases of how a modern blog should feel, and since I'm thinking about doing something similar myself (it's been almost 4 years since I did this!), I decided to dissect a few of the most innovative ones, hoping to get a picture of what works and what not. Here are my picks of the most creative and best designed (mainstream) blogs on the Web, those that are standing out from the crowd and are unique in what they offer to their readers.

Fast Company

Fast Company is a great example that demonstrates the power of images - especially if you have access to professional photographic material. The home page is clean and the highlighted article is integrated into the main key visual, which works very well. The same logic of the huge picture is implemented to the inner pages as well, and this picture is transformed into a gallery if required. There isn't much of related content on a single article, and the social buttons are custom, which I think we will be seeing a lot of in the future.

Fast Company uses an effective combination of the key visual, article header, additional flavor text and custom social buttons.

Fast Company uses custom typography, infinite scroll to avoid paging, takes good advantage from the article abstract / subtitle to make you curious (it's displayed on the article as the introduction as well), and their website is responsive. It is also interesting that they keep a single article visible above the fold on their homepage to retain focus. From the design and user experience perspective, this solution is one of my favorites.

Gawker

Gawker's innovative approach was to use two columns for news on the home page - one for top stories and one for latest stories - and ditching the main menu. While this may have been one of the most important evolutions modern blogs have made, I don't think this feature works well on the homepage, since I don't really notice the right column when I browse the site. However, this feature becomes more useful on the inner pages, where this module is duplicated, and where most people land on the site.

Gawker and the omnipresent main menu that changed the game.

This realization, that single blog posts should be treated as primary landing pages, is very important, and Gawker was one of the first to fully integrate that concept into its user experience. People don't browse blogs anymore, they consume social media that brings them to blogs.

Gawker also uses a big picture (not in such a cool way as Fast Company) in the post, and it's very smart and concise that this picture can be replaced with a video. I like the way comments are solved, showing only the most popular threads, and not the complete conversation (with the amount of comments they have, it would be probably useless otherwise). I'm also keen on the internal hot meter they use, which they seem to use to distinguish the top and latest news. However, they should ditch the "like Gawker" block exposed on each article, it's very misleading. The mobile site should also be replaced with a responsive version.

Mashable

Mashable's redesign introduced quite a few interesting features I look forward to adopting. They have minimized the main menu, offering a drop down popup menu that allows further classification of news. This menu is well coded and does a pretty good job of taking care of incidental mouse moves (not as good as Amazon though). The homepage uses three columns to display articles, even though I'm not fully sure how that works ("The new stuff" is probably all articles, "The next big thing" are probably highlighted by the editor, and "What's hot" by the crowd), and this feature's column header is fixed upon (infinite) scrolling. The design is, driven by their specific social media ninja audience, of course, responsive.

Mashable has a clever integration of social media activity on the top of the article.

What I like about Mashable's new version the most, is the clever social media integration. They have the total number of shares displayed on the top of the article, as well as a little graph that displays the dynamics of social activity for a specific post. These social media statistics are probably also used to feed the columns on the homepage, even though most people probably don't understand what's happening. But perhaps that's for the best - if it works well in recommending the articles, thumbs up.

Again, we are seeing a picture above the article, which can be video as well. That's good. What I don't like about Mashable is the three-column footer of the article, it is the same as the homepage, displaying a single category. I can understand the need for such a thing, it could work, cloning the homepage on the landing article page, but for me, it's just too overwhelming.

The Next Web

The Next Web's new design is somewhere in between Mashable and Gawker. The homepage uses two columns, the Channels, which can be configured and switched from popular to latest, and the main window, which offers a pinterest-style display of articles, similar to the one Mashable uses. This left menu box is fixed and used both on the home and inner pages, and it works as the main menu to navigate the content of the portal. The main main menu is simple and works as a hub for other TNW stuff.

The Next Web's navigation and post header, together with instruction to use the keyboard.

The Next Web also has custom social media integration, and offers the users to navigate with the keyboard. This navigation works very well with the left box - meaning the users is navigating the current selection in the box, offering an experience similar to switching a remote on a digital TV, knowing what the next channel will be. I'm not sure how many users notice and use this feature, but this integrated content and navigation approach is very interesting.

The site is responsive, uses a big picture before the post, together with the detailed information about the article. Another interesting thing - the images break out of the paragraph form. Overall, a very solid performance with a minimalistic design.

Quartz

While Quartz may not be one of the most well-known blogs out there, it still very much deserves a mention for its creative implementation. The clever menu that collapses when you proceed to the article, the interesting fixed list on the left that can be configured and pivoted according to your wishes, making the navigation much easier and again, integrated with the content.

Quartz fully integrates the navigation and content.

There's another innovative feature on Quartz for which I haven't decided if I like it or not, but it is very interesting nevertheless. When you scroll to the end of the article, the next article is automatically displayed, together with a new URL. This is made as a redirect (the url changes), but it does not seem like one at all - when I get the time I will try to see how they technically achieve this. This article change is integrated with the left box, which makes the complete experience pretty interesting, similar to the one The Next Web has. What Quartz misses is better social media integration. They went a step back and decided to use links to share pages instead of widgets, which probably doesn't help their traffic that much, but it's aligned with the design. The site is responsive.

The Verge

The Verge's homepage is probably the most unique of them all. While I would make the main menu less confusing, I really like the tiles for the most interesting articles. This is followed by the video section, and by a ton of other articles - too many of them, to be honest. But things get more interesting once you get to a specific post. The menu gets smaller, there is a clear navigation to the next and previous articles at the top, and the breaking news floats.

The Verge's posts are close to perfection - full of images and quotes, together with embedded galleries.

The design of the inner page is very creative, there is a huge image (not on all articles, it seems only on the reviews) with social share widgets, a secondary title is also used. I really like the quotes inside the text, and the jump-to thingie is useful as well. You can see that someone took a lot of time to shape the content, the text is wrapped around images, the galleries are embedded within the text. This gives you an impression you are browsing a high-end iPad magazine rather than a web page. There aren't to many other elements on the page, so the overall result is very clean and easy to read. On the other hand, that polished content structure probably makes it quite hard for the site to be responsive, which The Verge is not.

Wired

The legendary Wired magazine has an online edition that would make a lot of people proud. They have been always known as innovators, and were one of the first to introduce the grid display of articles instead of a list. This means the emphasis is more on the images and headings than it is on the text. The popup menu is put somewhere inside this grid of posts, which is a daring, but effective solution. This menu neatly moves to the top on the inner pages.

Wired's article headings have big titles and teasing abstracts.

Again, we are seeing two different types of posts as on The Verge, the basic one, and the advanced one. The advanced one is a feast to the eyes, with a huge heading and abstract that get you interested, the pictures that break out of paragraphs. But there are a few things that are not suited for such an established magazine. In a gallery, each click reloads the complete page, which can be very very annoying. I don't think hunting for ad views makes it worth it. I would also make the right column a little less overwhelming with content (not only ads, but everything else as well). And the site is not responsive.

Breaking down the elements

Based on the analysis, we can conclude that new specific elements started to emerge with the next generation of blogs. These elements are the results of us consuming content in a different way that we were a few years ago - before social and mobile. Most of them are taking care of "the homepage is not the landing page" situation, while trying to persuade people to proceed with browsing the content, lowering bounce rates.

	Fastco	Gawker	Mashable	TNW	Quartz	Verge	Wired	Total
Unconventional navigation		1		1	1			3
Fixed (floating) menu			1	1	1			3
Responsive design	1		1	1	1			4
Big key visual before text	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	7
Advanced key visual (gallery, video)	1	1	1					3
Abstract, teaser, subheading	1	1				1	1	4
Suggested content within limits	1	1		1	1	1		5
Custom social media integration	1		1	1				3
Polished content (wrapping, quotes)			1			1	1	3
Custom typography	1		1	1	1	1	1	6
Infinite scroll	1		1		1			3
Pinterest-style homepage			1	1		1	1	4
Integrated content and navigation				1	1			2
Total	8	5	9	9	8	6	5

Conclusion

Typical design and user experience of mainstream blogs have evolved in the past few years, and we will be seeing similar concepts adopted by the mainstream media as well. The social and mobile era have changed the way we consume content, while heightening our expectations - most of us simply count on great experiences. Luckily, the world is full of great innovators who are not afraid to take risks and implement new creative features that will become a standard in the years to come. I'm already looking forward to how other major players will respond to the new situation.

Check out the complete Reinventing the blog series.

Dear Facebook, please stop trying to control my attention

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:06:30 GMT

Not that I'm threatening you or anything, I can assure you I won't be leaving you anytime soon. There is still too much inside you, for me to walk away. But the last few attention seeking features you've implemented are really pissing me off! I fully understand you are trying to get me to interact with others even more, but what you are doing will rather have the opposite affect. You have to find another way to get me involved, or the tab that you live in won't stay open for much longer.

The new red notifications next to the groups are very annoying (it seems I'm in a test group of some sort, since not everybody has them). Which UX mastermind sold you this great idea? It's becoming really hard for me to look at my Facebook homepage for the past few days, I've turned off all the notifications from groups and these things are still there, all red and intimidating. What are you trying to do, get me to click on each of them every day, or simply leave 'em all?

And the sound notifications you play each time I get a comment? I'm often listening to music or watching movies, and they're simply too much of an intrusion. Don't want that shit, I don't use chat because of these annoyances. You are making me wish not to receive any comments while I'm doing other things, which is absurd. The web was intended to be silent unless requested otherwise.

I try to keep positive with my blog, not complaining and bitching too much, but every now and then I just can't help myself. Things did change since you went public, the pressure from the investors must be enormous: more users, more friends, more members, more interactions, more everything. The graph is hungry. But you have to understand what's at stake: if we get too annoyed by what you're doing, we simply won't spend enough time with you to see all the banners you want us to see. Which can be a bigger problem than groups without active members or a few unnoticed comments. The service is the most important thing you have, and nothing good can come out of this new aggressiveness. Think about it.

Did Apple and Samsung just pull the greatest trick in the mobile universe?

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 08:09:54 GMT

The verdict is finally in. Samsung has lost the lawsuit against Apple, which means the court decided they were copying iPhone's design and user experience. The decisions seems legit, specially if you saw the internal document from Samsung, a case study comparing and improving the Galaxy's user interface based on iOS's. On the other hand, it's hard to say if the decision is morally right and what it means for the mobile industry. Software patents are a problem and some companies like Google have already made a stance agains them (even though they've supposedly acquired Motorola because of them). But could all of this be just a marketing trick? Where Apple and Samsung set out to dominate the mobile industry?

Collectively, these two companies hold 50% of the smartphone market share, and take 90% of the global industry margins. Samsung is the only Android manufacturer that is really profitable. Around 25% of the iPhone is made by Samsung. The corporations publicly don't like each other, and don't have any problems suing each other while making business. A weird situation indeed.

Apple's biggest quarter brought in $13 billion dollars of profit on $46 billion dollars of revenue, most of it from iOS devices. Samsung's revenue is around the same, with lower margin ($5 billion). Yet the whole legal fiasco ended up in Samsung having to pay around $1 billion to Apple. Peanuts, if you ask me. We have been listening to this bullshit for years now, yet the decision doesn't make any significant different to any of the giants. Except the fact that people are taking side with one or the other. Not Nokia, HTC, Motorola, Sony or anyone else. Other manufacturers don't seem to exist anymore. Just Apple and Samsung, abusing the legal system to own the mobile world. Which could easily be one of the most brilliant marketing stunts ever. Two rings to rule them all.

On iPhone, toys, the enterprise and of course, Windows 8

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 07:34:06 GMT

Flashback 5 years ago. In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone, the original model, which had no 3G support and cost more than any other mobile phone. At that time, Nokia dominated the market, with almost 40% market share, and Samsung was gaining ground on Motorola, both owning around 15% of the industry sales. Funny, how things change in so little time, but what's even funnier, is how the competition reacted to the iPhone. Some of you may remember how Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, laughed at the iPhone, saying that it's pretty much an expensive toy that would never penetrate the enterprise. History proved him wrong, and we can only guess if this was one of the most bitter predictions he ever made.

Apple proved that with proper marketing, a toy can find its place in the enterprise, a place traditionally owned by Microsoft. We must understand that even if a lot of Microsoft's revenue does come from the Windows division, most of it still comes from their enterprise business (Business Division + Server and Tools). But is the enterprise ready for a radical user interface such as Windows 8's Metro? I hope Microsoft isn't overcompensating for the totally wrong estimate about the success of the iPhone, because it's hard to believe they will be able to pull something similar off. Sell another toy to the enterprise.

I love Windows Phone 7. The user interface is great, the user experience is intuitive and fun. I like what I've seen about Windows 8. I think it's fresh and modern, something that even Apple could be proud of. But what worries me is its adoption in business environments, which is Microsoft's core business. The phone and a tablet are primarily casual gadgets, the personal computer is not. And there is already quite a bit of bad press around about the upcoming new version of Windows. Some have already said the next Vista situation might happen, and that most people will stay on Windows 7, like they did on XP before.

I think the average user in the enterprise in not that tech-savvy. Imagine a 50 year old secretary, struggling with the new fundamentally different environment of Windows 8. Businesses have already had problems with implementing the new Office 2007, at it was only slightly different than the previous version (compared to the differences between Windows 8 and Windows 7). Who will pay for the massive training required by users to adapt to the new Windows? Which company will risk it?

Of course, I might be wrong and Microsoft isn't primarily interested in the enterprise with this release. Maybe they are just trying to own a bigger share of the consumer markets, and targeting mostly smartphones and tablets, hardware included. This might be an interesting strategy, since adoption of Macs has also grown with the success of the iPhone and iPad. I hope they have a solid plan behind it, because I would like to see Windows 8 succeed. Because Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 actually did higher my perception of Microsoft, they made me believe Windows can be awesome. But to succeed, Windows 8 will have to be more than awesome, the way it's done, it will have to be so amazing my mother will be able to use it on her first try. Otherwise she won't.

The final destination, part 1: technologies and concepts enterprise IT will have to adopt

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 18:38:09 GMT

In the past years, we've witnessed a very important transformation: the consumerization of information technologies. Billions of connected users living their life online, overwhelmed by millions of information systems that have been tailored to suit their every need and desire. Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon came a long way with their products and infrastructure, but the enterprise isn't losing any time. Learning from the new paradigms and adopting new funky technologies, that have traditionally been developed in corporate laboratories. Can the Fab 4 also predict where enterprise IT is headed? And what will it become?

A few weeks ago I participated in a panel for PI-PL on Ljubljana's Faculty of Economics, where I was asked this exact question: where do I see corporate IT in 10 years. A very hard question indeed, but the more I thought about the it, the clearer it became. Enterprise data, software and technology will sooner or later integrate everything. Simple as that. But to fully understand how this will happen, we must first try to identify the most important trends that have shaped information technologies as we know them today. Yes, most of them don't have that much to do with the enterprise. But things are changing.

Cloud technologies

While cloud computing may have been present in the enterprise for quite some time, it's still pretty much dominated by web players like Google (mail, docs, etc.) and Amazon (hardware), who are also flirting with the enterprise. Who wouldn't? There are massive benefits for businesses to move their stuff to the cloud, from scalable physical Infrastructure to higher level Platform or Software as a service information systems.

Perhaps the most important thing the Cloud achieved was to render technology infrastructure irrelevant. It doesn't matter any more, what kind of environment you use. What type of security, infrastructure, servers and network you have installed. You can outsource these things to others, and it will be much easier and cheaper, while all your migrating-to-a-bigger-thing problems will be solved with a swipe of a credit card. I was fascinated that Microsoft now offers Linux based servers on their Azure cloud services, which can be changed to Windows with a click of a button. Architecture doesn't matter anymore, and this fact helps IT departments to focus on more important things than system administration.

APIs, mashups, platforms and ecosystems

Heavily connected with the whole Cloud concept, data and information never had it easier to travel from one place to another. System migrations (moving data from one information system to another) and system integrations (connecting multiple information systems into one) have always been one of the biggest challenges of IT. But the web didn't have as much resources as the enterprise, so it had to simplify things. By offering APIs (Application Programming Interface), web applications allowed others applications to work with their data in an easy way. Mashups, hybrid information systems built on top of others, were born.

Pretty much every noteworthy web service has its own API. This helped a lot of them to become a platform. You know, like Facebook and Twitter, who have created an ecosystem, where thousands of other applications live around them? Soon, similar concepts will dominate the enterprise too. There are already players like Salesforce, who not only offer business-oriented Software as a service solutions, but the also a Platform for other developers to build services on top of their services. And since everything is so open, all this data can easily be integrated with other information systems or transferred to a different environment. Modern information systems don't have problems with understanding each other, but IT departments have problems with understanding information systems, since different, more business oriented skills are needed to support these integrations.

Mobile devices and new distribution channels

More than ten years ago, when I was an Information Sciences student, there was still a debate going on about the benefits of web based enterprise information systems over traditional Client - Server architecture. In the end, the Web won, mostly because distribution was so easy, you make the update on the server, and every user gets it instantly. Employees need nothing but a browser. They are acquainted with the environment ever since they started using Hotmail, and took it for their own ever since they started using Facebook.

But today, it seems the Web is losing its ground as the leading infrastructure, since a new technology came into town. Capable mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, now enable access to information systems from anywhere, anytime in real-time. Besides, they arrived with their own app markets, which enabled a whole potential for software distribution, and perhaps more importantly, for software billing. You give a fair share to the store owner, who also promotes your solution, and you can freely focus on developing and marketing the product. It's true that mobile apps may not be as flexible as web applications, since the users need to install the updates (even though this can also be achieved by combining native mobile and hosted HTML 5), but the trend is clear. Apple already has its Mac store, Microsoft Windows will follow soon. Distribution of mobile and Software as a service information systems is becoming trivial.

Big data and The internet of things

Traditionally, banks, retailers and financial institutions have been the organizations that operated with the most data in the world. Well, things are changing, and we can only wonder who owns the most bytes today: is it Google, Facebook or someone else? Since there are less transactions than there are interactions, we can estimate consumer oriented information systems with billions of users are the biggest in existence. While this data is accessible to the enterprise to some extent, there are also hundreds of other systems the enterprise or its employees use, and they all create massive amounts of data and information, which needs to be integrated into a wider picture.

Not only that. Today, there are already are more connected devices that we have initially anticipated. These devices (cameras, sensors, tools, etc.) create even more data, which the enterprise needs to process. This trend of wired gadgets is called The internet of things, and together with the large amount of interconnectable information systems businesses use, points to one important trend: the typical enterprise was never faced with so much data and information, which somehow needs to be integrated and understood in an interdisciplinary way.

New ways of doing things, on a higher level

In the mean time, these consumer oriented (B2C) web corporation not only became a few of the biggest technology companies in existence, they've also invented new ways of how to get things done. From Google's 20%, to flat organizations without management, more and more companies (not only startups) set out to revolutionize how business is done. In the service oriented society, creativity is important, but so is productivity and the ability to ship fast. Done is better than perfect.

With new types of management concepts, such as lean and agile, modern organizations are becoming more and more flexible. Not only in doing things, but also in switching from one technology to another. These companies have developed their own way of thinking about which software to use. And it probably has a lot to do its price, how fast can you start using it, how scalable and connectable it is, and how fast can you dump if for another. IT requirements are moving to a higher level, and information systems have become just pieces of a puzzle that needs to be completed.

Design and user experience

Design and user experience probably still don't have that much to do with enterprise IT, but they are very much worth mentioning nevertheless. Face it, users are becoming more and more demanding, and software developers need to make better and better software. Even though the above mentioned facts are probably the dominating factor for the choice of which information systems the enterprise will use, design and user experience matter more and more.

Businesses have always had problems with implementing new software, educating the users, going through the whole status quo change. But beautiful and useful software penetrates faster. People perceive beautiful things to be more useful, and it's the whole intuitiveness and usability of software that helps them adopt something without too much resistance and problems. Some software vendors already found out user experience is the new competitive advantage, and in the end it may be the thing that tips the scale. But the whole point behind it is that I can see better, more clever and detailed, information systems force out older ones on an even faster pace. The whole world of information systems need reinvention, and user experience design will be the science behind these upgrades. Benefits are becoming more important than features.

Social, crowdsourcing and gamification

More than 3 years ago, I was very excited to present a concept we have been developing in Neolab on Days of Slovenian IT. I called it IT 2.0, since it meant integrating social services into enterprise software (at that time, Enterprise 2.0 was more widely used for stand-alone social software such as wikis or corporate blogs). The truth is, I didn't get the chance to sell it well, and in the mean time, disruptive social services managed to fully find their way into the enterprise. But business won't stop here; there are many other fascinating things the internet has invented that can fully be applied to corporate environments.

Gamification, the art of using gaming mechanics in non gaming environments, is getting more and more claim beyond the web. Both for motivating employees, as for motivating clients. We all like to play, so why should work be any different? And we all like to participate in something bigger, that is why crowdsourcing, where people coproduce something, can bring such exciting results. Can you see where I'm headed?

We are all human, and in the end, behaving on a very basic level. Sometimes we perform better, sometimes worse, and we all hold hidden potential even ourselves aren't aware of. That is what software in the workplace can sometimes help us discover, and it's something more and more businesses are aware of. Social, gamification and crowdsourcing are only a few approaches that can make us feel better and more motivated, and they are all concepts that enterprise IT will adopt sooner or later. Behind every company, there are only people.

The final destination of enterprise IT

These are the concepts and technologies that will shape enterprise IT of tomorrow. And with it, new challenges will emerge, together with new profiles of people, who will understand and use all of the above. These profiles, such as data scientists and business analysts, will help enterprise IT do what it was destined to do: Integrate life, the universe and everything.

But that's another story. Coming up soon.

Check out the complete The final destination series.

What Apple's headphones can teach us about user experience design

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 12:25:17 GMT

I've always been fascinated by things that simply work. By the details that convince, by the experience that fulfills expectations. Enter the case of Apple's headphones. They may be just an accessory that supports something else, but this little gadget is a brilliant example of how ux design should be approached. I'm not saying other vendors don't make equivalent or even better headphones (don't know, so please comment!), but Apple has proved many times that they really know what they are doing, reinventing stuff as they go along. Bottom line: as weird as it may seem, when your are designing user experience, you should think about Apple's headphones. They are one of the most perfect examples of how to do it right.

Form follows function

As most great designers will tell you, the design is only as good as its ability to solve a problem. The focus is not so much on aesthetics, as it is on function. If you manage to persuade someone to do what you wanted, design did its job well. Otherwise, it failed, even if it looks great.

Apple's headphones come with a controller for the iPod and other phone functions. This controller is ergonomically shaped in such a way, that you can use it with your eyes closed, or while running. Your finger will always find its orientation. The volume up button is physically on the top. The form follows function, being beautiful comes secondary.

The controller is designed in such a way it does exactly what you expect it to do, without guessing.

There are infinite ways you can implement this philosophy into software, but you have to know what you are trying to do. That's the main objective of user experience in general, understanding your goals, and adapting everything to help users reach them.

"Less is more" generates intuitiveness

The controller comes with only three buttons, but these buttons can do more that it seems. The age when a single control could perform only one function is over, and this fact can easily be applied to the new generation of software, supporting advanced (native and HTML 5) interactions (swipes, multi-finger gestures, etc.) on devices such as smartphones and tablets. Here's what these three buttons can do:

volume up and down are dedicated
the main button can play and pause with a single press. The same goes for answering and hanging up the phone.
pressing the main button twice goes to the next song, three times for the previous song
holding the main button activates Siri / Voice control

Less is more is a very important approach, and it's one of the reasons why the iPhone did what it did, having a single button instead of many. Users shouldn't be faced with too many options and choices, it's better to design these choices in such a way they offer advanced behavior. Only then, users will find something intuitive and easy to use.

Think adaptation and multi-functionality

As mentioned before, the headphones controller can adapt its behavior to the state the system is currently in. When you are listening to music, it controls music, when you're on a call, it controls the call, when you are using Siri, you're the weirdo who's talking to your phone. Software can do the same; when I launched this blog, I played around with the idea of the home link adapting to the fact where the visitor currently is.

Software users come in various shapes and find themselves in various situations. First time user vs. second time user, potential client vs. client etc. Advanced systems can adapt to this fact and offer a different kind of experience to each of them, acting multifunctional. You want to present yourself to the first time user, and inform the second time user. You want to close the potential client, and do everything to retain the current client. Software is not static anymore, it adapts to different personas and scenarios.

Consistency FTW

Great user experience is consistent inside a product and across multiple channels. Even if something is not solved perfectly, analog functions must be solved in the same way all across the same and other systems, to avoid confusion. Apple's headphones also work with a Mac computer. With the controller, microphone and everything. The little cherry that makes Apple's complete listening and controlling ecosystem a platform.

The headphones are fully compatible with a Mac.

This is very important fact, making user experience a holistic strategy, that goes beyond the single product / implementation. A part of mentality that CEO is not about Executive anymore, it's about Experience.

Summary

Great user experience is becoming a competitive advantage, but at the same time something that's really hard to master. Knowing what problems and goals you are trying to solve is crucial, everything else must adapt. Thinking outside a single product and implementing the same philosophy across multiple systems and channels is slowly shaping (user) experience design into a strategic business function.

Apple's headphones with their controller are a great example of how to do user experience right. Something so basic, but at the same time so advanced. Solving so many problems with so little, by fully understanding what you are trying to do in different situations, and leaving you only with the choices you need to make in the specific moment. It simply doesn't get much better than that.

Twitfluence received some media attention. And almost went to Seedcamp.

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 09:05:04 GMT

Lately, a lot has been happening with Twitfluence. We've finally decided it's time to go out of prototype mode and make Twitfluence a fully working solution, a joint venture between Neolab and IlovarStritar. A fine combination of great technical expertise and amazing visual experience. We've even applied for Seedcamp Ljubljana, but only made it as runners-up (which is actually not that bad for the first try). But that won't stop us – we are more certain than ever to make Twitfluence a complete product, and we'll try even harder the next time.

There are quite a few challenges on our way, the biggest one being the technical difficulties the calculation is having when analyzing large accounts. We had to rewrite it pretty much from scratch. Besides other small upgrades and patches, we will also be doing another major thing: rebranding it. Twitfluence sounds too generic, and most service built on top of Twitter are Twit-something. You will see what we have in mind, and we're sure you'll like it.

This will probably be the last post about Twitfluence on stritar.net, since we'll be moving to the official blog. It was fun while it lasted, but Twitfluence will be retired soon, to make way for something even greater. Hopefully you will be able to see the results in about a month.

What made us pursue the idea further, to think beyond the current ugly mode? A lot has had to do with bloggers that were covering us, which gave us amazing moral support (and a kick in the ass). This coverage went way beyond Slovenia and we are proud to have made it so far. It has also shown us we are on the right track – if we were able to get noticed with the current version, the broad potential of such a service must be great. See for yourselves, here are a few great articles that we've seen floating on the internets:

My Community Manager: Different authority measurement applications review (in French)
had blog: Twitfluence review (in Slovene), by @had
SocialEast: About Slovene Twitter tracking software solutions
Toronto Star Blog: Politicians on Twitter, and how to determine their influence and social capital

Thank you for your support and patience, we'll be seeing you around. Bigger, better, prettier and of course, more playable. Stay tuned.

Forget Facebook. Šport TV and their billboards found Twitter, with style.

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 20:59:14 GMT

About two months ago I was super fascinated about the fact that a variety of Slovene marketers started to promote their Facebook presence on billboards. Guess what: that's so two months ago. Šport TV, one of the biggest sports television networks in Slovenia went a step further, designing their billboard(s) specifically for promoting their coverage of The European basketball championships on Twitter. Which is a bit surprising, since there are supposedly only around 10k people on Twitter in Slovenia (compared to 650k on Facebook), but still, Twitter is much more suited for media coverage than Facebook for various reasons.

The massive billboard I spotted is located on one of the biggest intersections in Ljubljana, and it's made out of three pieces. The main piece contains three celebrity basketball commentators, each one represented with his own Twitter account and a "Follow me" call to action. Until now, these profiles managed to attract around 150 followers each, which isn't bad at all. Their Twitter backgrounds are well designed and their streams almost updated, which will hopefully continue even after the championship:

Sašo Filipovski: SportTV_Saso
Zoran Martič: SportTV_Zoran
Zmago Sagadin: SportTV_Zmago

Šport TV continued the campaign on their website, where they presented the same three commentators, besides promoting the hashtag #Litva2011, which is quite popular these days for Slovene standards. Pretty advanced and coherent marketing indeed. Great job.

The championship will be over today, Slovenia did well and managed to finish 7th, but we also went a step further in digital. Yes, Twitter is finally becoming a player and some people obviously know how to use it. Exposing the actual faces behind the corporations is effective (specially if you are in showbiz), and something that is nearly impossible to do well on Facebook. So this campaign is actually a double win. Just don't forget to update.

Šport TV's Eurobasket billboard

Šport TV billboard: Follow us

Šport TV billboard: Facebook and Twitter

Šport TV website highlight

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

Optimizing computer input performance: learning to use the trackpad with both hands

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:20:05 GMT

I'm left-handed. Which is not that optimal for general use of computers, since they are designed for right-handed people. You use the external mouse with your stronger right hand, which means your weaker left hand stays on the left side of the keyboard, where most of the function keys are. I managed to adopt that. But now a much greater challenge awaits: learning to do the same with the trackpad.

When I bought my first Mac, I also went for the Mighty mouse, which more or less sucked. After some time I abandoned it and started using the trackpad, which is really cool since it also supports multi-touch gestures. The new Macs and their trackpads are a lot bigger, and their multi-touch even more capable, so I'm not even thinking about getting an external mouse. Besides, I think having your hands near the keyboard by using a trackpad makes your inputting (navigating and typing) a bit faster and more optimal, since you don't have to move that much. And of course, it's better if you use the trackpad with your right hand because of the keybeard function keys.

When Apple introduced the first iPhone, people were laughing at its underperforming capabilities. But the iPhone had something significant that made it the success as it is today. The outstanding capacitative display and amazing user experience, which set new standards for mobile industry. I'm not sure if the same capacitative technology is used in Mac trackpads, but the fact is they simply work.

Looking at modern tablets and smartphones, it's pretty obvious that the future lies in devices with touch capabilities. Why should computers be any different? Besides, we will probably be using both hands sometime soon. So this mission of mine may have multiple benefits. Be better today (ok, tomorrow, since adoption will take some time), and be prepared for the super high-tech virtual touch future by having two touch-adopted hands. And when I actually manage to make it work, I already have an idea for the next, even more optimal inputting method: Using the trackpad with my right thumb, so both my hands can stay on the keyboard. Wish me luck.

Determining if an element is in the last row of a table

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 11:57:52 GMT

Once upon a time I stumbled upon a problem, where I needed to calculate if an element is in the last row of a table. Here's the scenario: you have a number of items, which are put in a table from left to right. When the row is full, the items continue in the next row. Imagine an airplane or a theater where people start sitting front-left and continue to the right until they run out of space, then going to the next row and so on. Now we want to know which people are sitting in the last of the populated rows.

A weird problem, but hopefully I will be able to show you some cool results produced by this algorithm someday (yes, it's usable).

The equation has 2 parameters: the total number of elements and the number of columns in a single row. There are a few ways to do it, using division with remainders (the modulo operation). The simple way would be comparing the total number of rows with the element's current row. Another one would be to calculate the number of elements in the last row and see if our element is in those last few. While both seem logically easy, they actually suck, because they contain exceptions (some states need to be handled specifically - if the last row is full or not).

That's why I went for the ultimate way, using abstract mathematics which requires real magic, and since it would be too boring to explain it, just take it if you need it and don't try to understand - to be honest, even I'm not perfectly sure how I did it.

The number of rows way:

lastRow = ((Math.DivRem(currentElementIndex + 1, numberOfColumns, out remainder1) + Convert.ToInt16(remainder1 > 0)) >= Math.DivRem(totalElements, numberOfColumns, out remainder2) + Convert.ToInt16(remainder2 > 0))
* Math.DivRem returns the division result and the remainder, since both are required for the calculation

The number of items in the last row way:

lastRow = (totalElements - (totalElements % numberOfColumns) - (numberOfColumns * Convert.ToInt16((totalElements % numberOfColumns) == 0)) < currentElementIndex + 1)
* % is the modulo - remainder from dividing

The ultimate way:

lastRow = totalElements < ((numberOfColumns + currentElementIndex) - (currentElementIndex % numberOfColumns) + 1)
* % is the modulo - remainder from dividing

Mathematics is awesome.

UPDATE (27.7.2011): Silly me. Overwhelmed by "The ultimate way", I missed the opportunity to simplify "The number of rows way". I guess this is one of the cases which explain why counting starts with 0 instead of 1 in programming.

The improved number of rows way:

lastRow = Math.DivRem(currentElementIndex, numberOfColumns, out result1) >= Math.DivRem(totalElements - 1, numberOfColumns, out result2))
* Math.DivRem returns the division result and the remainder, since we need the number rounded down.

Looks like Slovene marketers and their billboards finally found Facebook

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 07:58:44 GMT

Lately I've been noticing an interesting trend in local advertising. Billboards all across Slovenia started to display Facebook icons or even links to Facebook pages. Since Slovenia is a few years behind in adopting new marketing approaches, this came as a bit of a surprise, it may have even produced a bit of patriotic pride. Look at that, advertisers have finally started to see the potential in digital and social, looks like we are not that out after all.

This proves Facebook is very much in the game in Slovenia. Out of 1.3 million people online, 650 thousand are on Facebook, which is around half of the wired population. Comparing the figures local statistics, Facebook is among the top sites, which is a potential goldmine for marketers. And they are not sleeping – quite a few local brands already have more than 100k followers (top global brands have tens of millions). And since spamming people's timelines is free after they become fans, no further explaination is needed.

Supporters on social networks are getting more and more important, so thumbs up for this one. But don't forget two important things. A Facebook page is not a replacement, but rather an addition to your regular web page (some of you don't even provide URLs to your sites any more). Secondly, Facebook fans are worth nothing if you don't know what to do with them. So don't stop here, set your social goals, publish and interact.

The billboard photos are available in the gallery below. At this point, only Facebook is used by advertisers, but other social services will surely follow soon. What do you think will be next major online marketing frontier in Slovenia? YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn or even FourSquare?

Zavarovalnica Maribor, Glej na cesto

UPDATE (4.9.2011): Looks like Ford went over the top with the offline Facebook Like button included on their summer edition billboards.

Ford Fiesta

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

I've developed a magazine based on my Delicious bookmarks. And a Twitter bot.

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 07:34:38 GMT

Last week was marked a great social achievement of mine – I managed to bookmark my 10.000th bookmark on Delicious. A lot of people have 10.000 tweets, but not many own 10.000 bookmarks, fully tagged and classified. I've been collecting these since December 2006 (probably one od my first 2.0 addictions), and they are becoming one of my greatest possessions – knowledge is the ultimate collection. Hopefully Delicious won't get shut down or left behind, so I will be able to continue with this obsession.

I've made a few interesting mashups with them already; as my most frequent actions online, my bookmarks represent the core of the chronolog. But things are changing fast and the desire for presenting information is moving into a new dimension. In case you didn't notice, tablets are mainstream, and the media industry already hopes they are the solution they've been waiting for. The Daily, which was released a few weeks ago, is the first no-print, tablet only magazine available (for iPad, Android version is coming), and other applications, based on social curation, such as Flipboard (which is amazing and inspired all of this) and OnSwipe are revolutionizing the way we (create and) consume content.

I find this evolution of displaying information fascinating and a bit ironic - going from newspaper form to blog form and back - but I've decided to play along, developing a magazine based on my bookmarks. Using the Html Agility Pack library for asp.net I managed to extract an image and a few paragraphs from each URL I bookmarked, using them to form a magazine. The number of tags I put on each link determines the initial weight, which is additionally modified with your views and likes, allowing it to constantly adapt its shape. Those links which are stronger, are displayed higher, have a bigger picture and more text which makes them more visible.

While contemplating about the potential of different APIs and all the pages I bookmarked these years, it occurred to me I could also make a Twitter bot. All the bookmarks I save are now getting automatically shortened with bit.ly and posted to Twitter, with a bit of artificial intelligence. The speed of posting is determined by the number of items waiting in the queue, adjusting to the frequency of my actions. It still has a few problems, but they are only appropriate for a prototype, whose posting algorithm still needs to be technically and mathematically improved.

The life cycle of my links I like has become quite a ride, as you can see in the diagram below, similar as the evolution of the Web, transformed by social, mobile and the upcoming domination of the tablets. And while the major players are able to spend millions on the development of new and creative solutions, small players such as myself can only play along. Luckily, I like to play.

The path each one of my bookmarks makes in its lifetime.

Windows-branded computers on TV. Entering a new market or product placement fail?

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:02:11 GMT

Lately I've been noticing a lot of television shows that used computers with a Windows logo on their back. Classic product placement, where advertising blends with an event, movie or a TV show. The master of product placement in the mentioned segment is currently Apple, who also has suitable products for most occasions – beautiful and recognizable laptop and desktop computers. But Microsoft doesn't make computers at all. It does make some hardware (Xbox, Zune), but its focus is mostly on software (and lately on consumer electronics), so why the hell would they want to advertise something that doesn't even exist? Have they lost their mind or are they entering yet another market?

The past years have been hell for Microsoft. Bill Gates left, and current CEO Steve Ballmer sold a huge pile of shares a few weeks ago. Apple even managed to become more valuable than Microsoft, and Microsoft is obviously looking for different opportunities to stay in the game. Because I don't really believe they will start producing computers (tablets perhaps?), I can imagine these product placement efforts were created to gain lost ground on the OS market and targeted against Apple, but I think they could have come up with something more appropriate. In my opinion, Microsoft's greatest opportunity still lies in business environments (Office, SQL, asp.net, …), but while they're trying to focus on other segments, they are loosing that enterprise software market to other players such as Google.

Product placement in general makes sense for Microsoft, with Xbox, Windows 7, Windows Mobile 7, even Kinect and Surface as perfect candidates, because they look cool and Microsoft actually produces (or will produce) them. But advertising Windows computers, that's a bit ridiculous. Perhaps this type of marketing actually works on other target groups, but for more tech-savvy consumers such as myself, it looks desperate and fake, because we all know Microsoft doesn't even make computers. Worse, it looks like Microsoft is trying to position itself close to Apple (even the logo imitates Apple's), but doesn't stand a chance against the design perfection of a Mac. In the end, all this money spent perhaps made Apple look cooler and might have even helped them more than it helped Microsoft.

Microsoft should focus on the fields it masters and does best (or at least try to expose their know-how and advantages), because they have little chance to succeed competing on the markets that are dominated by other players (Apple in design, Google in search). And they should stop marketing fake branded computers, because they simply look silly. Perhaps this October campaign was a short experiment or even some sort of the ultimate innovative marketing strategy made by the greatest advertising agency in the world which I don't understand and appreciate, but I think it's actually quite ineffective and wrong. Or am I wrong?

How I Met Your Mother: Season 6, Episode 4. Aired October 11th, 2010 on CBS.

Lie To Me: Season 3, Episode 2. Aired October 11th, 2010 on FOX.

The Mentalist: Season 3, Episode 5 (also other episodes). Aired October 21st, 2010 on CBS.

UPDATE (26.2.2011): Here are a few more shows doing it. It looks like it's a CBS and FOX thing.

The Good Guys: Season 1, Episode 15 (also other episodes). Aired October 29th, 2010 on FOX.

Bones: Season 6, Episode 14. Aired February 17th, 2011 on FOX.

Many colors and identities of different brands with the same name: Neolab

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:43:10 GMT

The company I work for is called Neolab. It's a name we obviously share with many other companies from all over the world, producing a little global identity crisis. We were aware of that fact when we picked the name, but nowadays it's becoming almost impossible to find a unique name for a brand. A few years later, I went on a quest to find as many Neolabs as possible online and stumbled upon 21 of them. While I was at it, I also took my time to try to find out which industries these companies are from and to understand why other people chose this brand. This post will bring you a diversified collection of different "Neolab" logos, so similar in name, but yet so different in corporate identity and design.

In the case of Neolab Slovenia, my partners and I decided to go for the name "Neolab" because we wanted something that would represent and communicate our focus on Research and Development (the Lab part) which has to be in tune with all the newest technologies available (the Neo part). Neo-Lab. Others were probably thinking in a similar way, and the interesting fact is that these "New Laboratories" don't come from many different industries. As the name already suggests, all Neolabs that exist (online) today focus on knowledge intensive fields.

Medical

"Neolab" is obviously a name which people instinctively connect with medical industries, and most of the Neolabs I was able to find are working on that field:

Neolab Chile
Industry: Clinic
URL: http://www.neolab.cl/
Design: 3 points

Neolab Germany
Industry: Medical Equipment
URL: http://www.neolab.de/
Design: 4 points

Neolab India
Industry: Medical Equipment
Design: 3 points

Neolab Russia
Industry: Medical Equipement
URL: http://neolab.ru/
Design: 2 points

Neolab Serbia
Industry: Clinic
URL: http://neolab.co.rs/
Design: 4 points

Neolab Switzerland
Industry: Medical Equipment
URL: http://neolab.ch/
Design: 5 points

Neolab Ukraine
Industry: Clinic
URL: http://neolab.kiev.ua/
Design: 6 points

Neolab United States
Industry: Medical Supplies
URL: http://www.neolab.com/
Design: 4 points

Average score for Medical: 3.9

Pharmaceutics & Biotechnology

The other similar industry the name "Neolab" is well suited for is definitely Pharmaceutical. Here are some of them:

Neolab Argentina
Industry: Biotechnology
URL: http://www.neolab.com.ar/
Design: 5 points

Neolab Canada
Industry: Pharmaceuticals
URL: http://www.neolab.ca/
Design: 3 points

Neolab Peru
Industry: Pharmaceuticals
URL: http://www.neolabperu.com/
Design: 6 points

Neolab United Kingdom
Industry: Pharmaceuticals
Design: 1 point

Average score for Pharmaceutics & Microbiology: 3.8

Marketing, Web and Design

The connection between Marketing, Web and Design is usually hard to distinguish, and the following Neolabs are focused on some or all of those fields:

Neolab Brazil
Industry: Web & Design
URL: http://www.neolab.com.br/
Design: 5 points

Neolab Denmark
Industry: Design
URL: http://neolab.dk/
Design: 4 points

Neolab Italy
Industry: Design
URL: http://www.neolab.it/
Design: 9 points

Neolab Japan
Industry: Web & Design
URL: http://www.neolab.co.jp/
Design: 8 points

Neolab Korea
Industry: Web & Design
URL: http://www.neolab.kr/
Design: 7 points

Neolab Norway
Industry: Advertising
URL: http://www.neolab.no/
Design: 8 points

Average score for Marketing & Design: 6.8

Technology & IT

IT companies also often see themselves as laboratories and here are a few of them, including our Neolab:

Neolab France
Industry: IT
URL: http://neolab-systems.com/
Design: 6 points

Neolab Poland
Industry: IT
URL: http://www.neolab.pl/
Design: 4 points

Neolab Slovenia
Industry: Web & IT
URL: http://www.neolab.si/
Design: 10 points

Average score for IT: 6.7

Other

The special case from Thailand is working on construction projects.

Neolab Thailand
Industry: Construction
URL: http://www.neolab.co.th/
Design: 4 points

Average score for Other: 4

While I was putting the list together, I decided to quickly rate each one of them to see if there are any significant differences in the quality of logos and websites between different industries. This score was made on my personal opinion and not on any scientific methodology. You can see for yourselves that those Neolabs, working in Marketing, Web and Design have the best corporate identities. IT is close, but mostly because our design is so unique and won many awards last year. The Medical and Pharmaceutics follow miles behind, and their websites and logos already look a lot out of date. These industries are maturer and the companies older, and they probably take their competition to other fields (research, quality, professionals), without giving so much on their image and marketing, at least online.

Applying the same calculation to Neolabs from different continents, we can see that Europe scored the highest score (average 5.5), followed by Asia (average 4.8) and Americas (average 4.3).

Neolab - the name behind so many different companies, brands and identities. It's interesting to see how specific industries, people and cultures are able to portray the same simple name in so many unique ways. Some our good, some our bad, and really trying to be unbiased, I still think ours is the best, followed by Italy, Norway and Japan. Or am I just too blinded and you have a different favorite?

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

Why are all browser logos and icons round (and blue)?

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 11:23:31 GMT

I'm not a professional graphic designer, but I've been doing web development for years and got to know a few things about it, both intentionally and accidentally. I hope my designer friends won't get mad with me simplifying design in this post, but the way I see it, there are mostly two main purposes design serves. One is to support function (present both in industrial and graphic design) and the other is to enable effective representation and communication (specific for graphic design).

Logos are probably one of the most praised elements of graphic design. They make an effective characterization of a company, product or service, besides being aesthetic and memorable to enable high user recollection. It's also good to have an original logo, something that stands out from the rest and helps a brand not to get mistaken with other brands. But there is always a trade-off between creativity and standard, and in our case of browser logos and icons, it looks like this desired representation was a bit more important than originality. Most of the browser logo designers went for a safe and predictable solution, producing one of the greatest graphic design cliches of our time.

When you think about the Internet and the World Wide Web, there are probably not so many geometrical shapes and colors you can associate it with. The net is huge, endless and fluid, so the proper shape is definitely not a triangle, a square or something else with edges. The net is global and it's everywhere, so the color representing it has to be something resembling our planet.

If you compare six of the most popular internet browser icons, you can see this concept in action. Most browser logos and icons are round and contain blue, except Opera, who went for red. But it's not just about the shape and the color, the bottom line is they generally look alike, using similar elements such as Earth, light beams and reflections. Opera logo stands out, but upon second observation, it kinda looks like an uncreative red Internet Explorer clone, so perhaps it's even worse than the others.

Are the designers behind these solutions to blame? Probably not. The internet browser is arguably the most widely used piece of software there is, so it's important that your mother also finds it's icon representable and appealing. The truth is we probably won't reinvent the World Wide Web or colonize the galaxy any time soon, so there is a good chance we also won't see any original and creative browser logos any time soon too. Therefore we just have to accept that round and blue it is.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

Creative online advertising at its best – Wired and Youtube

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:48:41 GMT

I used to work for an online advertising agency. For large projects we were usually trying to make a campaign extraordinary and special, something that would stand out from the rest and be creative and effective. When you are trying to achieve something like that you are usually limited by a great number of facts, such as the campaign budget, creativity of the team, capabilities of the designers and programmers, but perhaps most importantly, the technical issues and platform of the site that will serve the ads.

Looks like Wired.com and YouTube.com don't have those problems and are actually cooperating with the advertisers to go towards perfection. YouTube you know, but in case you haven't heard of Wired, it's an online blog and an off-line magazine, one of the most respectable with focus on new technologies. They have great content, high reach and are a big potential for advertisers and marketers. Some of them are actually prepared to go for it all the way. I have noticed two campaigns on Wired and one on YouTube that really stand out, all of them fully integrated with the site. Forget floaters and takeovers, in-site advertising is the bomb. We can only wonder how much money was spent on the design, development and the serving of the ads.

Acura

The Acura ZDX banner works in a such a way that the site's main menu and some content are reflected onto the car (fake, of course). This makes it look as if the commercial is fully integrated with the site, making it interesting and appealing. It doesn't do anything special besides that, but the graphic rendering is pretty good.

Apple

Apple's iPod nano and iPod touch advertisements on Wired.com are even more outstanding. iPod touch goes a step further, breaking apart the site and its main menu (fake again, of course), trying to communicate the motion sensitivity, multi-player gaming and other features of the gadget. This approach goes beyond in-site advertising, because it uses the takeover ad to emphasize iPod touch capabilities, giving it an outstanding look and probably a very high effect for both branding and direct response. You must be weird not to click it, even though you know where the link leads and you don't actually need or want it.

Nintendo

After Nintendo's Wii console came out, they made a really awesome Wario Land ad on YouTube. Emphasizing the gaming console's capabilities and motion sensitive controllers, they went even a step further than Apple. The final result is a totally destructed YouTube page, with most of the site's elements slowly being kicked off the screen. Creative and amazing, again with great direct and branding effect, use of beyond in-site advertising, and a great demonstration of focused communication. This one looks like it actually really does take the site to bits and pieces, because all the elements look real and updated. Nintendo was probably able to negotiate full control over their YouTube channel.

These are bits of advertising excess I have noticed while browsing the web. The mentioned commercials are usually online just for a day or so, so it's hard to catch them if you're not a regular user. I'm sure there are more similar cases like this on other portals too. It's been obvious for quite some time that advertising is shifting towards online, with effective and amusing results. Technical capabilities of this medium are probably unlimited, so we can expect even more amazing displays of creativity, design and modern marketing in the future.

Slovenian grocers going for Web 2.0 design

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:12:48 GMT

It’s obvious that Slovenian grocers are using TV as their main advertising medium, the same as many others. Nothing wrong with that. Their commercials are typical for their industry, emphasizing actual promotions and discounts and going for direct sales mostly. Nothing wrong with that too. They finish off with their logo on the screen, so they do a bit of branding too. Reasonable, you have to use all marketing approaches. But wait a minute, why do their logos look Web 2.0?

Using a reflection under a logo, picture or icon was started by the king of design, Apple, and was later on embraced by the Web 2.0 architects and designers. Here is an overview of history of Web 2.0 design, from the times we didn't even know what Web 2.0 was. Today, this stylish feature can be seen anywhere and is already becoming a cliché, but who am I to tell...

After I started being more observant, I noticed that half of the commercials on Slovenian television are using some sorts of reflections, for which we don’t know if they supposedly communicate modern and web (2.0) approaches or are they used just for aesthetic reasons. So much for their creativity anyways. But there is something important they forgot – Web 2.0 is not design, Web 2.0 is a concept.

In our case, the two grocers mentioned are Mercator and Tuš who, interesting enough, don't use the same Web 2.0 logos on their websites. Mercator is ahead though, they have a Facebook page and an active Twitter account, while Tuš failed to recognize new types of media and new Web 2.0 approaches for marketing (and their web site looks like it's from 1995).

I wasn't able to find these advertisements online, so I had to do it old school - photographing the television. The quality is miserable, but enough to prove my point. Looks like Web 2.0 design is so in that it's already out.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

New features on the chronolog: Blogroll, RSS, Twitter client

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:10:00 GMT

Less than a year after launching the chronolog, it’s already obvious that I made the right decision by developing my own platform. Usual blogging platforms are rigid and resemble news portals. I went more towards web 2.0 approach, because I like thinking out of the box and making something special. Hundreds of hours went into chronolog's development and some modules don't actually bring any real value add, but still, I think that the features I built in make it fully comparable with any other blogging platform. Now I have my hands free to take it anywhere I choose and believe me, it will be fun, creative and interesting.

The first wave of features were focused mostly on internal optimization and getting the most out of the data available. The recommendation engine is working like a charm, and the statistics and analytics offer interesting insight into the chronolog information flow. Now, the time has finally come to go towards externalization, towards openness and connectivity with other platforms, services and people. Information must flow not only on the inside, but also on the outside.

RSS

My blog's core is based on RSS feeds, where information from various sources get combined into one unified stream, the chronolog. A lot of other services and aggregators on the market also stand on the basis of RSS. Now, finally, after all this time, the amazingly anticipated, so much appreciated, different RSS feeds for different chronolog views are available for your reading pleasures.

Twitter client

I'm saving the best for the last, and this one is pretty awesome. My chronolog is now a registered Twitter client, able to post links and thoughts directly to Twitter using its API. This is both cool and useful, because until this point, the chronolog was only able to read data from various sources, but now it's also able to generate data. This opens a whole new set of interesting opportunities, both in the direction of building a complete Twitter client, as in the direction of full integration with other online services. Did I mention it was cool?

I'm quite happy with the whole situation and the chronolog's development. Sometimes it's hard to invest both into content and into technology on one single project, but this thing has already gone too far not to use and abuse it even more. I like challenges, so If you have any cool suggestions, they will be more than welcome, but for now this is it. I like to play.

Neolab in 2009

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:38:32 GMT

2009 was a hard year for everybody, specially for start-ups such as Neolab. Greed and wrong decisions of global financial institutions and their leaders turned the world upside down. Luckily we were able to survive, to stand tall against all the challenges that await for us next year. Projects have been confirmed, so the biggest issue that we face now is consolidating our inner organization and finishing our software framework that we put so much time and energy into.

A few weeks ago, Neolab celebrated it’s second birthday. The first two years are supposedly decisive for the survival of start-ups, so if this unfriendly situation won’t last too long, looks like we’ll make it. To sum it up: for us, 2008 was the year of checking out the scene, where we were observing if it’s possible to make it on our own. The second year, 2009, was the year of marketing, where we presented ourselves to broader audience.

Our presentation was quite successful. After a few years of building and optimizing our design and marketing concept with IlovarStritar, we finally launched our web page, a thing we are very proud of. Until this post we (they) have already received two awards for Neolab’s broader corporate identity, Brumen award and Taiwan international award. This confirmed we made the right decision by doing something special with our image.

The whole story of our design identity is built around a fictional ecosystem of pixelized mutant animals, representing connectivity of people, organizations and processes using information technology. Different animals are used for different documents and people so the whole concept is scalable, artistic, interesting and fun. If you like, you can check out the whole showcase on the IlovarStritar website.

We are becoming one of the biggest slovenian experts in IT. In april we received an award on the Slovenian IT conference for best paper on the subject of IT 2.0. If that wasn’t enough, we were also named the Emerging web agency of 2009 on Slovenia's biggest web authority, Netko. The barriers between organization, marketing, IT and web are obviously getting thinner and thinner, and Neolab stands strong right in the middle of it.

We may look good on the outside, but we are also healthy on the inside. At this point we employ six people, which actually brought a bit of organizational confusion. By adopting stronger approaches in project management, things are turning for the better. Besides, our big investment into our framework, which now stands stable, scalable and promising, will soon be complete, so we are more than ready for all the projects that are coming upon us.

Hopefully this year will be more welcoming. As we and our services mature, new challenges for our clients, suppliers, partners, supporters and ourselves are on the horizon, so you better be ready for all the things we have in store. To a successful 2010!

Stunning Lego applications, creations and art

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:33:26 GMT

Lego started producing the already iconic toy in 1949. Since than, a few variations of the brick have been designed, but all made after 1958 are compatible. More than 50 years of models, themes, worlds, colors and fun for the young and the old. Yup, you heard it right, the old are mad about Lego. Because Legos are cool, Legos are pop, Legos are viral and Legos are really loved by the web society.

A blend of availability, tradition, flexibility, compatibility and creativity stimulation helped Legos become more than a toy. They became a platform, a concept, an artistic medium, and mostly, they became a cult. There are a lot of creative applications and creations around, but a few of them are specially worth mentioning.

The minifig society

Supposedly there are billions of minifigs in the world. Pretty impressive. They come in thousands of types and some of the greatest fans were actually able to make a detailed timeline of the minifigs. The Star Wars edition alone has more than 150 different minifigs, and this poster just makes you want to have 'em all.

Lego photography

There are a few cool pages that combine Legos with photography. If you're interested in that sort of stuff, you should check out album covers in Lego, or this amazing classic photography reconstructions.

Video edits

Perhaps even more popular than pictures, the video edits range from Star Wars videos, arcade games simulations and funny films, such as The Dark Knight trailer. One of the most popular is The Simpsons intro. I've said it before, people have too much time.

Robotics

Since Mindstorms came around, Legos gained eyes, ears, hands and programming logic. This means that things such as a money safe, Rubic cube solver or even the Touring machine (a primitive computer) are possible to build. The only limit is one's creativity and sadly, budget.

Amazing constructions

Artistic and giant Lego sets are being built by many people. Diversified lists can be found here, here and here. Other sculptures worth mentioning are the aircraft carrier and the Space Shuttle. Some other freaks made a 5 million brick boulder, which accidentally crashed into a car. The number of bricks is unconfirmed, because in England they made a 30m tall tower using just 500.000 of them. Below you can see Barack Obama's inauguration.

The Millenium Falcon

The Ultimate Collector's Millenium Falcon (that's Harisson Ford's space ship in Star Wars) is the biggest Lego set ever made. You can describe it in one word: Awesome. 5.195 pieces and a price tag of 500€. Ouch. Still, it is probably every Lego fan's dream.

There you have it, Lego fun for the whole family and all the different tastes. I told you Legos were cool.

Emoticons - a new form of art?

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:12:13 GMT

Emoticons are becoming quite a serious form of enriching (web) communication, as picture can tell a thousand words. The truth is that a word can tell a thousand pictures, at least when emoticons and other "digital" forms of speaking are concerned. The way of using short and to-the-point statements, such as short messages, tweets and emoticons, is here to stay. Congratulating the internet, welcoming emoticons. \o/

I've heard about a trend between urban artists to make sketches using just one line. I think emoticons are acting upon a similar behaviour, as twenty years ago nobody could imagine what a few characters could portray. Design is about keeping it simple and clean. And you can't get much cleaner than using letters, numbers and other basic characters.

An interesting "artistic" application of this phenomena was designed for an advertisement for a weight loss programme. I don't like the overall look, but still it is a creative way of bringing modern techniques into classic advertising. Simple shape, a meaningful story. And the characters look like design, even though they are really just plain simple characters with ordinary typeface.

I can't imagine where this trend will end. I wouldn't be surprised if sometime in the future newspapers, poetry and prose will get more emoticonal, as this approach is very simple for inserting drama-type essence into non-drama based art. Our youth is totally wired, will they wire the real world too as their time comes?

Proud: My blog will be a Mac

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:47:58 GMT

The dispute between Mac, Windows and Linux users is neverending, so we will not even try to go there. Personally, I have been using a Mac for the past two and a half years and I have my reasons to like it. It costs twice as much as an alternative would, but for a guy who spends 25 hours a day behind a computer, this seems not so unreasonable. And the biggest benefit? Mac OS X, of course.

Mac OS X is both a toy and a high performance tool at the same time. It is cute and fun to use, but it also owns many creative in useful features. Many of them are getting implemented into our software and some of them I tried to build in into this blog. Here's a few:

Things that are tecnhically equivalent, don't need to be represented equally in the interface: On a Mac, you can change your network location (with IP settings) with one click from the start menu, a thing laptop users often need. In Windows, you have to go to Control Panel, Network Settings, etc., because this feature is technically similar to changing my computer's name. A feature used very often...
I did a similar thing on my chronolog. Blog is much more represented in the interface, than f.i. Loved tracks, because those posts are more interesting and dynamic. But they are the same thing from the technical point of view.
Ajax: Most tech guys would say that AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, a meaning that can't be argued with. But for me it also represents a new type of user experience, which has not been seen on the web before it.
Mac OS X user experience is just lovely with all the smooth transitions, transparencies and the the cute "ajax" loader...
Web 2.0 design: Web 2.0 simply loves those pretty icons with reflections, which are, if you haven't noticed, also used on this blog. Hm, where have I seen those before Web 2.0?